Viewing post #3078570 by Char

Sorry for the late reply Dragonfly, I've been thinking about your question. Honestly I don't know what to recommend. I don't know anything about what "someone" would hope to accomplish with their crosses other than relief. Everyone's hybridizing is based on personal choice, their goals, influenced by other factors like $, growing zone, garden space, even their understanding of the form, parentage, lines, hybridizers.
I do know that when I started almost 25 years ago I was collecting all the relief forms I could find. Back then we didn't have sculpted form, databases and websites so the search was part of the fun. The yellows were easiest to find, they were the dominant color and even though I had a lot of them in the garden what I really wanted to hybridize for was any color other than yellow. Back then there were 2, Carved in Stone and Coquina Key, neither of which had great relief or were happy growing here, but I managed to get some sdlgs from them. I added others to the mix as they came a long, Bas Relief, Keys to the Kingdom but again tender plants. Each addition of tender resulted in frustrating winter sdlg loss, so set backs. The original plan was to never introduce a yellow... so much for that plan. Forest for the Sun is a high percentage poly with light relief, Through Time and Space a cream overlaid yellow and then Fiddle of Gold which hung around for years before I decided that if it was going to live here it should have a name. Now there are so many more relief forms to chose from and they come in so many colors. You can find better plant habit and ones that grow north or south. The advancements have been exciting to see! If "someone" were to want to start hybridizing relief forms with 3 cv's I would say, define your goals and find plants that will grow well for you with the best relief for that group. Search the databases, take notes, check parentage forward and backward....your best chances of producing relief will be with a cv known for producing relief that comes from parents that produce relief, a line. Then dream big and have fun!